Ask HN: How do you find the "why" behind old code decisions?
Curious how teams actually handle this in practice.
When you’re modifying existing code and need to understand why a decision was made:
Where do you look first?
How often do you fail to find a clear answer?
What do you do when the original author is gone?
I’ve been running into this more often lately --digging through PRs, Slack threads, and half-written docs just to piece together context, and I’m wondering how common this really is across teams.
When you’re modifying existing code and need to understand why a decision was made:
Where do you look first?
How often do you fail to find a clear answer?
What do you do when the original author is gone?
I’ve been running into this more often lately --digging through PRs, Slack threads, and half-written docs just to piece together context, and I’m wondering how common this really is across teams.